This game is good, but I liked FFV better. The reason why comes primarily down to the method of character progression: I prefer the class-based progression system of FFV to the item-based progression system of FFVI. I find that the former system manages to stay engaging until the endgame (at which point you start swimming in AP) whereas the latter system is not all that engaging until you get the right Relics/Equipment at which point gg. The Esper system doesn't quite measure up either, and Gau's Rages are too auto-pilot for me. On a fairly random positive note, being a Dragoon is a lot cooler here than it was in FFV due to actually having support.

The Tower of Kefka is an interesting idea for a final dungeon (everyone must fight!) but the very format of the game's battle/party system kind of gets in the way barring grinding to get everyone on par. Escaping battles in this game is also a pain.

While he does sell the idea of "humanity created its own monster" better, I'm pretty iffy about Kefka as a villain. (ironic, considering my last post was praise of Plot-Armor: the Villain) Early-on his shtick (being an insane monster) works because the basic assumption is "the Emperor is so power-hungry he'll sign this monster's cheques." Then the Emperor brings him along to the Floating Continent for some reason. It's not like he needed a bodyguard or anything, he just...brings him along. Surprisingly, things go south. Am I nitpicking? Also, sadly, Goku could probably defeat him.

It'd be cool to replay FF7 now to complete the Hippie Trilogy but I don't think I'm up for another JRPG right now.

I remembered this game being kind of mindless and bland, but it's actually a lot of fun. There's a surprising amount of strategy involved, considering your character only has 2½ attacks—the combat reminds me somewhat of the swordfighting from Zelda II. And for a NES title based off of an arcade game, it never feels unfair. When I die, I feel like it's my own fault, not because the game has thrown a bunch of crap at me that I can't possibly handle.

I give it three out of four stars. It's been a surprisingly fun game to revisit.

It's Rock, Paper, Scissors, but you're a fortune teller. You're allowed to draw up to four cards every turn that affect the probability of your opponent throwing each sign in various (potentially contradictory) ways. Each level is a series of battles that progressively introduce more complex gimmicks and then let you use spells and modify your deck to overcome what it threw at you. Genre-wise, it's something between a puzzle game and a card battler - you'll probably need to like both to get much out of it.

You're playing as Cassandra, a cursed oracle working for the Magical Resources department of some anonymous bland major corporation. Given that, it's probably not going to shock anyone that the story is about (over)working a dead-end job that doesn't appreciate you and that there's a lot of jokes about corporate culture. It's nothing groundbreaking, but it's entertaining enough for a three hour game.

I'd say it's an interesting game that's worth checking out if the concept interests you. I don't think it's going to blow anyone away, but it's unique and memorable, and that's probably good enough for what they're asking.

71. Heartbeat (11/10) (PC)

Heartbeat has a whole lot of influences that it draws enough from to be obviously related to each of them while still very much doing it's own thing. It's got allies who are sentient elemental monsters from another world like SMT, the graphics and world tone are a mix of Pokemon and Earthbound, and the non-combat gameplay and story take cues from everything from Final Fantasy to Zelda. It's a 15-20 hour game with a dozen-plus party members who all have unique traversal abilities, fishing and card collecting, sidequests and optional areas, and an alien that eats garbage and morphs into your friends to help in battle. As a $10 game seemingly made primarily by one person, it should be a classic example of trying to do too much, but it somehow all comes together brilliantly.

The world and characters are consistently charming and entertaining, and there's a ton of variety in both the people you'll meet and the scenery. One puzzle that asks a bit too much of RPG Maker controls aside, the dungeons are fun to explore and don't overstay their welcome. Combat was a bit grindy for my tastes, but dropping to easy fixed that without making what remained overly tedious. But that and a few of the music tracks aside, it's a game that moves from strength to strength almost without interruption.

Its narrative is its strongest point, however, and shows a really impressive range. It starts out rather happy-go-lucky and develops darker undertones as you learn more about the world, but it does so by mixing those competing themes instead of suddenly becoming a gritty game. It's as brightly colored and silly as Pokemon can be, yet it realizes that doesn't stop it from telling a story with serious themes. I've wanted an RPG like this for a long time, and Heartbeat delivered in spades.

It's only on Itch for the moment and didn't get much attention at launch, but it's a fantastic game that's absolutely worth your time and attention.

I decided to try out all the weird short Humble Trove games that weren't available on other platforms. Turns out that, excluding a couple preview builds that don't really count, there are good reasons they're not on other platforms. Also, Hitman.

72. Hitchhiker: First Ride (11/10) (PC)

You ride in a car with a grape farmer who says some stuff that sounds profound but isn't, and then it abruptly turns mystery thriller before ending even more abruptly without payoff. Interaction is minimal and the car is obviously doing circles around a tiny track, so there's not much to see. I think it's supposed to continue in a later game.

73. Elephant in the Room (11/10) (PC)

You're an elephant in a room who has to escape the house without being "acknowledged" by the absurd number of humans in the house. I put that in quotes because someone looked at me, pointed, and screamed for several seconds as I was leaving, and that apparently doesn't count as being acknowledged. It could maybe work if it was fleshed out more, but it doesn't do much for me as a single level, 10 minute game.

74. Hitman (2016) (11/11) (PC)

It makes you play the tutorial mission three times in an attempt to demonstrate all the different ways you can play, but that had the effect of making me bored and deciding to just shoot the target from the spawn point. I missed, because guns are wildly inaccurate at range, and ended up having to fight off every security guard in the level while hiding behind a plywood box. Turns out that you have a massive amount of regenerating health and get an absurd amount of ammo with every gun, and that enemies are slow, prone to charging in solo, can't shoot straight, and always die to headshots. This is not a good combination of traits for a stealth game.

Since I can't resist beating a game in a stupid way when it lets me, I proceeded to beat every level by hiding in an L-shaped room (usually a bathroom) and shooting every guard that came after me, then walking up to the target, shooting them, and walking out of the level. It's actually still pretty fun this way, but I engaged with so few of the game's actual mechanics that I don't know if it's really fair for me to give it much more of a review than "you can Rambo it, and that's kind of dumb in a stealth game."

75. Thorn (11/11) (PC)

You spend a couple minutes doing repetitive tasks in order to upgrade a machine to do your repetitive task for you. Then you do that two more times. Then you realize that the last room doesn't unlock until you've purchased many times more upgrades than any reasonable person could possibly have before reaching the end of the meaningful upgrade and video content, and you stand in front of the upgrade machine for 15 boring minutes grinding out the points needed to unlock the door where something interesting supposedly happens.

Then you immediately get nuked and the credits roll. It's an aggressively pointless and boring game that dragged me along for thirty minutes by promising to do something interesting and then completely failed to deliver.

Free supplemental games for last year's Night in the Woods. LC is a wintertime forest myth that's basically a proof-of-concept for the engine, and LN is a dialogue demo where Mae and friends sit around a fire and talk about the zodiac. LN is probably only interesting if you enjoyed NITW, but LC is a pretty solid game in its own right, especially for free. They're both 20-30 minutes long.

77. A Hat in Time: Seal the Deal (11/13) (PC)

This made my top 10 just ahead of Odyssey last year, so I was really looking forward to the expansion. Unfortunately, despite being a 3D platformer, they decided to set it almost entirely in the narrow halls of a cruise ship, and the camera is no more capable of handling that than you'd expect from this genre. Even putting aside the camera issues, the ship's layout is bizarre and the objective indicators are useless in this kind of multilevelled environment, so you spend almost all of your time mindlessly following the objective arrow. It's only three levels long, but they're frankly awful.

The other additions are probably more worthwhile, but I haven't checked them out much. The "deal" part of the title refers to a series of 100+ challenges spread across the existing levels that'll unlock new cosmetic options, which seems fun. It also added six time rifts (basically the challenge levels from Sunshine), which were one of the best parts of the base game, and local co-op, which is always welcome.

I can't complain too much since I got it in the free period, and the extra additions are probably worth the $5 asking price even without the new level, but it's really unfortunate that said level is so bad.